Free Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) by Amy Andrews

breaths before he spoke. “What. The. Ever-loving. Fuck?”
    “I know,” she sighed, sitting on the nearby three-seater couch. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She looked up at him. “I didn’t plan on faking a pregnancy, really I didn’t, but then Ethan laid down those stupid conditions and I thought well screw them, serve them right if I was pregnant and then suddenly it seemed like a good solution and it just tumbled out and then everyone stopped talking about me leaving and it was already out there and …”
    Her voice trailed off as her eyes pleaded with him to understand how what had seemed like a good idea at the time had turned into something bigger than the Great Dividing Range. And he did understand Lacey and her impulsive ways. But this? He’d stepped up for her because he’d genuinely believed she was pregnant.
    “I backed you up,” he said, his grip tightening on his mug. “Marcus punched me.”
    “I never asked you to do that, Coop.”
    True. That had all been on him. “You asked me to be on your side.”
    “Not by becoming the fake father to my fake baby!”
    Coop snorted, his anger simmering. Her gratitude was overwhelming. “Oh and how do you think your thirty-eight-year-old, married-with-two-kids lover was going to go over with your brothers? Believe me, I was the lesser of those two evils.”
    “Except I’m not pregnant,” she snapped.
    “Yeah. But I didn’t know that did I?” he said, teeth gritted.
    “How was I supposed to know you were going to support my crazy?”
    The simmer hit a boil as Coop stared down at her. “ Really ?” he yelled. “You have to ask that? When haven’t I supported you, Lacey? When haven’t I had your back?”
    *     *     *
    Lacey blinked as Coop’s bitter words rained down on her like a shower of hot sparks. He had supported her every time she’d asked him to. Unfailingly. Him jumping into the fire with her should hardly have been surprising.
    She took a breath. After all, he’d just been reacting to her reaction. Neither of them had put a whole lot of thought into it but Coop had gone above and beyond as usual.
    “You’re right, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t even thank you.” She lifted her hand and slipped it into his. “Thank you. What you did was … amazing. It was above and beyond and I’m sorry that my lie put you in such an awkward position with Ethan.”
    He got that brooding look she often saw on his face when he was in the middle of pulling her out of a scrape. Like he was trying to assess her sincerity. Or her need to be spanked.
    Or kissed.
    He let go of her hand as he sat beside her with a resigned sigh a moment or two later. There was a cushion’s distance between them but the usual wild ovarian flutter that kicked in whenever he was near did its thing.
    “I have to say, I’m relieved you’re not pregnant,” he said.
    Lacey smiled for the first time since she’d dropped her bombshell at lunch. “Same here.”
    He sipped his coffee and didn’t say anything for a while, but Lacey knew what he was doing. She could practically hear the cogs turning in his brain as he mulled through her problem.
    “Okay,” he said eventually. “So, this isn’t that bad. We can walk this back. We can go over there later tonight … the morning’s probably better actually … and just tell them the truth. Trust me, the fact that you’re not pregnant will go a long way towards helping your brothers forget all about the collective heart attack you gave them today.”
    Lacey nodded. It all made perfect sense. She could still walk it back.
    Except she didn’t want to.
    It was underhanded and she knew it but being here was all that mattered right now. Despite the tumult of the day, she already felt easier in her bones. And she’d take that however it came.
    “I don’t want to,” she said, dropping it into the silence, bracing for the immediate reaction.
    Coop swivelled is head in her direction, his brows